Euro-Collapse

The admirable Seth Lipsky of the New York Sun, formerly of the Wall Street Journal and the (English-language) Jewish Forward, seems to be the first American commentator since Walter Lippmann to recognize the prescience, in post–World War II matters, of Charles de Gaulle. He was referring especially to de Gaulle’s recommendation of a restored gold standard as de Gaulle and his chief economic adviser, Jacques Rueff, feared what would happen to the world’s currencies if they were valued only in relation to one another.

Their fear was not misplaced; the U.S. dollar, euro, and yen are all engaged in wholesale inflation, thinly disguised by phony calculations of domestic inflation and by relatively stable relationships between one another, because they are in almost free fall together, like three mountain climbers all sliding down the face of the peak and toward a hard landing.